You know them well—your obese clients who have tried everything: weight-loss meal programs, fat-burner pills, crash diets, gym memberships. Nothing worked for very long. When they turned up at your door, low self-efficacy was all they had to show for their sincere efforts to change.
More than anything, you want to help them turn the corner and adopt healthy lifestyle behaviors they can maintain. But how do you do it?
Self-Efficacy

Faced with many of the same challenges the U.S. has in terms of mounting rates of overweight, obesity and related chronic disease among its citizens, the Brazilian Ministry of Health recently released an unconventional new set of dietary guidelines. Unlike the nutrient-based American guidelines, Brazil’s focus more on sensible, mindful preparation and consumption of food.
Three overarching principles set the stage for the 10 guidelines:

As obesity continues to maintain a stranglehold on the teenage population, experts search for solutions to the potentially fatal disease. When it comes to exercise, a combination of cardiovascular and strength training is best, according to researchers from São Paulo.

Sports fans enjoy watching their favorite teams go head- to-head in physical competition. But many male spectators are reluctant to take their own measures to get fit. Researchers suggest that a more male-friendly approach could increase participation.

Mary Jayne Rogers, PhD, a 30-year veteran of the health and wellness industry, is based in Albuquerque, New Mexico. As owner of Profound Wellness, LLC, she provides expert commentary for leading publications, including The Wall Street Journal, Shape and SELF. Rogers has earned several industry accolades, among them the IHRSA/CYBEX Fitness Director of the Year Award and the IHRSA/Keiser 50+ Award for excellence in mature adult programming. Rogers specializes in whole-person wellness and fitness education and instruction.

Family meals and their rituals might be an underappreciated battleground for fighting obesity, say Cornell professor Brian Wansink, PhD, and coauthor Ellen Van Kleef, assistant professor at Wageningen University, The Netherlands. Their study appeared online in Obesity on October 1, 2013.

If someone in your social circle is making specifically healthy or unhealthy food choices, does it influence your behavior?
It’s likely, say researchers in the United Kingdom who have reported on a meta-analysis of several experimental studies that all examined whether access to information about the eating habits of others influences food intake or choices.
newsletter_teaser: If someone in your social circle was making specifically healthy or unhealthy food choices, would it influence your behavior?

﻿﻿In 1988, Joan Darragh tipped the scales at 288 pounds. During a trip to Japan, she had a defining moment. “I was in a bar, and I sat on a stool built for the slighter Asian frame,” says the New York City resident. “Suddenly, the bolts on my metal stool started to pop.” She tried to pretend it wasn’t her stool making that noise, but she still kept one foot on the floor.

The top titans of exercise—resistance exercise and cardiovascular exercise—continue to duke it out for the title of best fitness protocol. When it comes to obese girls, researchers believe they have a champion: cardio.
To determine this outcome, the researchers recruited 44 obese girls, aged 12–18, and assigned them to RE, CE or a nonexercise control group for 3 months. Measures included body weight, waist circumference, oral glucose, insulin sensitivity, body fat, cardiorespiratory fitness, muscular fitness and more.